


You Must Be Loving Your Life

by mab_di



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: M/M, One Shot, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Rating: NC17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 20:09:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1755959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mab_di/pseuds/mab_di
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Justin's been in New York City for a year and a half, and by all outward appearances he's getting by. But his art tells a different story, and after so much silence he has no idea how to build a bridge back to the one person who would understand what he's painting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Must Be Loving Your Life

**Author's Note:**

> Massive thanks to my beta, [sillygoose](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sonofsilly), whose careful edit and insight always make everything so much better.

“New York has changed my art.”

Glasses tinkle underneath the words like a soundtrack. After no more than a year and a half, the tune is already banal. Every young thing making art has fed Justin the same line. The city is their muse. The city has made them. Justin nods and taps his pinky against the stem of his champagne flute, turns to the canvas of bright reds in front of him, and thinks, “Perhaps.” 

He gets it. The city has moved him too, in ways. But the landscapes he paints are internal ones and New York hasn’t changed that. He’s been compelled by the rioting smells of international cuisine and overripe garbage more than by anything he’s seen, but he still hasn’t figured out how to do them justice on canvas. 

“Darling!” The familiar press of lips to his cheek accompanies the greeting. “I hoped we’d see you. You’ve become a tiresome recluse.” 

How he could have become anything to anyone here is beyond him, but he’s not surprised to be scolded. He’s been working. He returns the kiss with a brush to George’s cheek, his lips meeting the tacky skin of a freshly shaved, slightly more than middle-aged jaw.

“You say that, George, but if I don’t paint you’ll tell me I’m wasting my time in the bars.”

George tuts. “Now, now. Don’t be logical, dear. I miss you is all.”

“Well, I’m here.”

George pulls him away to make the rounds of the small gallery, pointing out what he likes and what he loathes. “Tell me about what you’re working on.”

Justin knows how to talk about art. He’s never suffered the inarticulateness some of the more temperamental of his calling do, but he doesn’t know how to describe what’s taken hold of him recently. “You’ll have to come see it.”

“How very mysterious.”

“It’s not, especially. I think it’s mostly about feeling lost.”

“Lost in the big city? How trite.”

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? Everything here is a cliché because there is just so much—so many people, so many ideas, so many stories—it’s all been said and done before. 

“It’s not the city, really. It’s certainly nothing new. Anyhow, you’ll have to take a look and tell me what you think. I could use a critical eye.”

George lays a gentle hand on Justin’s shoulder. He’s glorious in suede trousers and a tan button-down shirt, twee scarf tickling his graying chest hairs, the hint of his Mediterranean roots showing in his skin’s resistance to turn anemic in the bright gallery lighting. Justin imagines him in a feathered fedora, belonging to another era. George isn’t old enough to come from that era, but he’s old enough not to quite belong to this one. “My eyes are all yours, darling. Who else has seen this new work of yours?”

“No one.”

“My, aren’t we lonely. Marcus?”

Justin’s shoulder twitches under George’s touch. “No. I haven’t seen much of him recently.”

“Still pining, are we?”

Justin doesn’t need to answer that. Despite the lack of any obvious reason for it, George has been his closest confidant, friend even, in New York, and he knows a great deal more than Justin has ever said with words. 

George inclines his head and taps at Justin’s chin. “Well, then. Carry on. Marcus wasn’t the type to stick anyhow. I liked him.”

Justin did, too. Marcus was too smart and altogether straightforward to put up with Justin under the circumstances, a fact that made Justin admire him even more.

“Can you come by the studio this week?”

~o~O~o~

George shows up on Wednesday, much later in the afternoon than expected. Justin’s already washed out his brushes and settled on a crate with an apple when he hears the wheels of the freight elevator turning into action. As often as George has visited, Justin still marvels at how unlikely it is to see him materialize in his Greenpoint studio. He half expects George to suffocate on the Brooklyn air, so distant is the refined world he inhabits.

But he does materialize, straight off the elevator that opens directly into Justin’s studio. Justin’s workspace is generous even by Brooklyn standards. He begrudgingly has Simon Caswell to thank for it. He has Simon to thank for George, too. Actually, the cunty art critic is responsible for most of the doors that have opened for Justin since his arrival in New York. He’s learned to be grateful. And, in fact, Simon is considerably less cunty than a lot of his peers. It’s a quality that turns out to be relative.

“Every time I come here I spend the ride over the bridge thinking, ‘We really must find Justin a studio in Soho,’ and then the minute I arrive I realize this place is perfect for you.”

“It is.” Justin gets up to greet George and usher him in. “I’ll find a place in Manhattan when I’ve made my first million. Or five.”

“Let’s just hope success doesn’t compromise your art. You need to be sad, lonely, and poor a bit longer, dear.”

“Ah, see, George, what you don’t know about me is that I’ve always been spoiled, and it hasn’t spoiled my art. I’m lucky enough to be angry, so I don’t have to be poor.”

George ambles over to the canvases Justin’s been working on, immediately spotting the two Justin wanted him to see. “Anger only works until you hit your 30s; then you’ve got to find something else.” George crosses his arms and tugs at his chin as he regards the two over-sized paintings. “Luckily you’ve got years for that.”

Justin waits in silence, resisting the urge to tell George what he’s seeing. These paintings are a significant departure from the work that Simon and George have admired and helped him sell. Ghost-like figures drip in orange and yellow—strong, warm colors confused by the cold, lifeless subjects. He’s nervous. 

George is silent for minutes, and Justin feels a small pang of regret for inviting him. He’s heard the advice. He’s just starting out, trying to get noticed, needing to make a name for himself. It’s too early to be making art so different, unrecognizable from the work that collectors have only begun to consider his. _"It’s rarely about the quality of the work, my boy.”_ George’s own words shortly after they’d met. It depresses the hell out of Justin.

George clears his throat. “You know what I’m going to say?”

“Yes.”

“No. You think you know what I’m going to say.”

“Well, yes.”

“So I don’t need to say that part.” George is still scrutinizing the two paintings in front of him, his expression unreadable.

“No, you don’t. Well…”

“I do?”

“I guess I need to hear your whole thought.”

George finally turns and takes in Justin’s anxious posture. Justin’s pressed his back against a beam and is taking advantage of his ability to be still. George takes a step in his direction and then stops.

“You terrify me sometimes.”

Justin doesn’t have a response to that.

George makes a half-turn back to the canvases he’s been examining. “The whole thought?”

“Yeah.”

“You already know it’s too soon for this. You know you can’t show these or sell them.” George looks to Justin and he merely nods. “It would be a different story if you hadn’t already sold a fair amount of work—too much in my opinion, but you know how I feel. If this were the direction you were going in . . . but I’m going to take a wild guess that it’s not.” Justin shrugs. “I’ll take that as a no.” 

Justin knows all this. Until you’re established, the collectors who make you as an artist won’t buy your work if you’ve already sold too much of it. And they expect it to be distinguishably yours. Success depends on being rare and recognizable. These paintings look nothing like the work he’s sold. He doesn’t care, and it isn’t why he asked George here. “Tell me something I don’t know, George.”

“You want to know what I think?”

Justin waves a hand at the paintings and nods again. George isn’t a critic or a dealer, and he’s only a minor collector in the scheme of things. He’s bought three of Justin’s pieces and after purchasing the third he strictly informed Justin that he mustn’t sell him another painting for at least several years. Not if Justin’s aiming for the big time. George knows this world better than anyone Justin has met. And he knows art.

“They make me feel a little sick, and a little scared. They’re unsettling.” George pauses and Justin tries to figure out what he thinks of the reaction. He wasn’t going for any particular reaction when he painted them, but sick and scared sound appropriate. 

George abandons his stance in the middle of the studio and approaches Justin, placing himself close enough that he can speak quietly. “I think they’re brilliant, Justin. I think twenty-five years from now, when you’re already hanging in the Whitney, these paintings will emerge and the critics will write books about them.” 

Justin fails at suppressing his smile, but shakes his head at George’s grandiose vision. “Emerge?” 

“Yes. You must put them away somewhere for safekeeping.” 

Justin sags a bit at the thought of stuffing these works in a closet. George sees it. 

“Not storage, Justin. Never that. Keep them with someone you trust. Not a collector. Your mother? Someone who will relinquish them when you’re ready to show them, who won’t sell them in the meantime, and who won’t invite the world—or more importantly, the critics—to see them until you’re ready.”

Justin closes his eyes against the first person who comes to mind. 

“Get them out of New York, preferably, anyhow.”

He feels George’s hand rest on his shoulder. “It’s not the end of the world, Justin, not to show them.” 

Justin shakes his head and opens his eyes to take in George’s stern expression. George is good at this. He isn’t particularly bothered by Justin’s moodiness, and he isn’t moved by it either. He delivers good advice, regardless of how it’s received. He’s also been right in every respect that mattered since Justin met him. “Okay.”

“Good.” George doesn’t let go of Justin’s shoulder; instead, he continues to watch him intently. “You’re going to send them to him, aren’t you?”

Justin’s heart rate spikes. He’s angry all of a sudden, and shoves George’s hand off. “Don’t.”

George doesn’t flinch. “Say it.”

“Don’t assume. I’m just thinking. I’ve had exactly three seconds to think about this.”

“And you already want to send the paintings to him. That’s where you went in three seconds.”

Justin heaves a sigh and goes to the paintings, seeing something in them he could never tell George. There’s no point hiding it. Now that he’s thought it, he can’t imagine leaving the paintings with anyone else. They belong to Brian anyway. He’s annoyed. “What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing, Justin. Not a thing.” George paces wide around Justin, giving him space, but continuing to watch him from the wall of windows that are still letting in late-afternoon light. “He might be a good choice. You don’t have to justify it to me. Just be sure he’s trustworthy.”

“He’s trustworthy,” Justin snaps. He is. It still hurts Justin to think how little others have believed that about Brian.

“Okay then. That’s a door you’re opening. Just be sure.”

~o~O~o~

Time has poured itself like concrete down his throat, cementing over the words that were there, waiting to be spoken for months, and then more than a year. Maybe it happened too quickly. When he left Pittsburgh he was certain he and Brian had turned a corner. It wouldn’t be like LA. They’d talk more often. They’d visit. They’d be okay. Brian loved him, had said it with actual words. He’d promised anything and everything to keep Justin, and nothing could take that away. He hadn’t made promises about the future when Justin left, sure. But Justin assumed the promise. He’d assumed.

Maybe it had happened too quickly. Because nothing . . . there had been nothing. No calls. No visits. No word. 

Justin doesn’t want to be the one to break the silence. It seems the worst possible idea. He reminds himself of this daily in the week after George came to see his paintings, and he reminds himself of it one more time as his thumb hovers over Brian’s number in his contacts. He’s at his apartment in Williamsburg, a tiny two-room place with a sliver of a view from the window that backs the galley kitchen and one large window in the bedroom. He should be living closer to his studio, but this isn’t Pittsburgh. It was harder to make all the pieces fit than he was prepared for when he’d first moved. 

He curses his own indecision and calls his mother instead. 

“Justin!”

“Hi, Mom.”

She’s breathy, rushing in or out to somewhere. “You never call. Is something wrong?” She doesn’t sound concerned. She’s happy. 

“No, I just wanted to say hi.”

“I’m on my way out the door, but I do want to talk. Could I call you later tonight? Or tomorrow?” He hears a male voice in the background, low and quiet. “Are you sure you’re okay, hon?”

“Fine, Mom. Later’s fine. Or tomorrow. Just—”

She interrupts a soft breath, not meant for him, to listen. “What is it, Justin?”

“I need to call Brian. And I was wondering.” Wondering what? That’s the question. She’ll know though.

“There’s not much I can tell you, sweetheart. He checked in once, about six months ago. I told you that. He sounded subdued. I hear Babylon is open, but I don’t see him around. I see Deb, but she’s evasive when I ask about him. I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

Justin taps on the cracked linoleum of his countertop. “Thanks.”

“Justin?”

“Yeah?”

“Call him. It’s been too long. Whatever it is, don’t wait.”

~o~O~o~

It’s good advice, just as George’s was good advice, but he isn’t taking it at the moment. He’s painting instead. What he thought were two pieces, anomalies, turn out to be a series. Number three grabs him the week after he calls his mother and he doesn’t sleep for forty-eight hours. It isn’t until he’s napped on the single mattress he keeps in the closet of his art studio that he’s able to take in what he’s done.

It doesn’t look like the others. The figures now look less like ghosts and more like solid beings, but they’ve been bled of color, grays with only muted hints of yellow. Faceless and sallow, but recognizably human. This painting is the bleakest of the three, and even he feels a little sick when he looks at it. 

Half an hour later, he finds his cell phone abandoned on the back of the toilet in the hall of this old converted warehouse. It’s holding a missed call from his mother and two from Toronto. Lindsay is the natural choice for keeper of his paintings, he realizes. If it were a role to play, she’d play it to the hilt. And he could trust they’d be kept in ideal conditions. She calls occasionally, but not often. Two missed calls means something.

Justin clears the fog of too little sleep at the wrong time of day with cold water on his face, and he runs wet fingers through hair he’s been keeping short. The light coming into his studio when he steps back in is late-morning spring, strong and clear, already more southern than eastern. It’s a weekday. Something it takes him a moment to recall, though his phone could tell him if he’d remember to look. Lindsay will be well into her day at the gallery where she works.

He fixes himself a mug of black tea from the kettle before sitting on his crate to call. 

“There you are,” Lindsay says, as though she’s just looked up to find him standing there.

“You could’ve left a message.”

Lindsay clears her throat, and he can imagine her setting her shoulders straight the way she does when she’s deciding not to feel guilty for something that isn’t her fault. “I was worried, but I didn’t know what to say.”

“Sorry. Apparently I left my phone down the hall, and I’ve been working. I didn’t mean to worry anyone.”

“It wasn’t actually you I was worried about.”

“Oh.” Justin’s empty stomach cramps, an echo of his own worry, which he’s managed to dampen over the past year and a half with self-righteous hurt.

“Yes. You know what I’m going to say.”

Justin’s hand, the old injury evident now only in the turn his art took years ago, starts a tiny tremble. “Is he okay?”

“He’s managing, Justin. Just barely, I would guess. But . . .” Lindsay pauses and Justin switches the phone to his left hand. “Your mother called last week and mentioned you were planning to call him. I might have passed that information along. He might be waiting.”

“Fuck.”

“I’m sorry,” Lindsay says, the words quick on her tongue. She is feeling guilty, in fact. “But Justin, what the hell? Why don’t you call him?”

“Why hasn’t he called me?” The angry words sound childish in the air. 

“Oh, Jesus, Justin. I thought you were smarter than that. You know the answer to that better than anyone.”

And he does. That’s the thing. No one is more intimately acquainted with Brian’s stubborn pride. He’d shed it for Justin once, at a high cost, and Justin had walked away. With Brian’s blessing—push even—but nonetheless, Justin has never failed to recognize Brian’s self-sabotage for what it is. 

The sun cuts into the studio in beams, funneled through surrounding buildings and hitting the concrete floor in broad arrows. “I want to give him something. Paintings.”

That’s what he plans to do. It hadn’t been exactly what George meant, but they are a gift for Brian. He knows it as he says it. A gruesome gift, admittedly. But Brian won’t be bothered by that. 

“Can you afford to be giving your art away?” 

“I can’t sell these. And they belong to Brian.”

“Justin.”

“Yeah?”

“Just call him.”

~o~O~o~

Instead, he spends the next week preparing to ship the enormous canvases. He’s not stupid. He may never see them again, so he calls in his photographer. George would excel at orchestrating this, and enjoy it too, but he’s evading George’s inquiries. In a week or two he’ll tell him the paintings are with Brian, but he doesn’t want to be stopped from making a gift of them.

When they’re finally packed up, he watches the moving truck pull away from his studio window. He’s been excited, elated even, with this decision and the act of carrying it out. Standing here now, it hits him that there’s something of a sinking ship’s desperate last flare in the gesture. And as the flare’s fire burns out in the unnoticing bustle of the street below him, he wonders if this is what it feels like to drown.

~o~O~o~

The floor of The Cock is sticky with beer, but the minimalist décor—a few tables pushed to the far corners of the room—strips the space of pretense and opens it so that it feels larger than it is. It’s a place that reminds Justin he’s in the East Village and not Pittsburgh; this is a dive bar with no back room, but there’s almost as much sex going on in the tiny john as there ever was at Babylon. Some of the men here might like their scenes on other nights, but they come through that door stripped as bare of ostentation as the room has been. Jeans, T-shirts, and minimal coif. The conversation around the bar is easy and not especially loud on a weeknight. Justin’s drawn to a group of three public defenders slurring obscenities over the daily travesties that befall their clients in Manhattan criminal court. Occasionally Justin feels a twinge of shame at his own lack of higher education, but he’s always been smart and can easily follow a conversation about injustices that don’t surprise him in the least, even if he hasn’t spent much time worrying about them.

They ask him what he does, and one of them perks up when he says he’s a painter. “For real? You make a living with your art?”

Justin smiles over his bottle of beer. “Not much of one, yet. But I’m getting by.” 

His name is Sal, and he’s Indian-American, born in India, brought to New York as a child. Justin learns this over a second beer. Sal painted when he was younger, and dropped it when his parents convinced him law school was the responsible choice for an immigrant. 

“You’re not in it for the money,” Justin says, understanding as they talk how much this man cares about the work he does defending people who have everything stacked against them.

“No. And I don’t have any major regrets, other than the fact that I don’t paint anymore. There was no reason I had to stop.”

“Maybe you’ll start again.” 

Sal grins. They aren’t flirting, not really. This man has a genuine interest in Justin’s work, and Justin reciprocates the interest. He thinks of Marcus, fleetingly. They’d jumped into bed the night they met at one of George’s parties. Marcus was a booking agent for a number of rising alternative rock groups. Justin had never even feigned interest in Marcus’s work. 

It occurs to Justin as he and Sal nod and laugh through truncated life-stories that this is how real relationships start. This is how it would be, maybe, if he were planning to move on with his life. 

“Can I buy you another drink?” Sal asks as they both reach the bottom of their bottles. Sal’s friends have put space between them at the bar so this is now clearly a conversation for two, and an offer. 

Justin sits up tall on the barstool and forces himself to meet Sal’s warm eyes. The air is blue, as though years of cigarette smoke, now banned from the bars, still hasn’t cleared. The crowd is thickening, spilling into the center of the empty floor, and a number of disappearances down the back hall to the john signal that it’s time to dispense with the preliminaries.

“You seem like a really nice guy, Sal. Can I take a rain check?”

Sal’s eyes narrow and he watches Justin’s face, clearly working to decipher just how likely he is to meet Justin on a rainy day. “You have a boyfriend.”

Justin hesitates. “Not exactly.”

“I figured. We can still have a drink.” Sal looks comfortable, not devastated. He can roll with the punches, this one. Justin can see that already, and he likes it. 

The fact that Justin doesn’t have any doubts about going home alone opens the floor underneath him. Two weeks. It’s been two weeks since he shipped off his paintings, and the water has risen around him silently. He’s already gone under. “We could, but we shouldn’t.”

“No rain check, then.” Sal sighs and puts out his hand in the tight space between them. “It was nice to meet you, Justin. I might hunt down your work at a gallery someday, if that’s okay.”

Justin shakes the offered hand and lets it drop. “Of course, I’d like that. Maybe we’ll run into each other again.”

~o~O~o~

Justin’s heart is knocking an airless rhythm in his chest when he steps out onto Second Avenue. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t count the days. He’d sent those paintings on the slow barge, and steeled himself to hear nothing.

He eyes the neon rooster over his head in the bar’s doorway before turning up the avenue, headed for the L train. He’s flush right now and could afford cab fare, but there are no guarantees, and it’ll be a long time before he’s selling art at a price that makes life in New York City comfortable. It’s early May and the trees still aren’t fully leafed out, but spring is in overdrive, playing catch-up after a miserable April. The air is warm, summer’s humidity a close promise underlining the stillness. At eleven at night, Second Avenue on a Thursday reminds him of Liberty Avenue during a festival. Except that overly financed college kids and their shiny credit cards have begun to invade this neighborhood and change its complexion. The edges are wearing off, had already worn smooth by the time Justin got here. The Cock is an outpost from a different time. 

He pulls thoughts down like a shade as he walks, allowing the city around him to crowd into the spaces he’s afraid to leave empty. Trucks squeal and grind down the avenue, making their way to nighttime deliveries while cabs wheel around them. Justin feels the faint vibrations long enough to send him digging into his jeans pocket for his phone. There’s no quiet here, ever, and he never hears it ring. Something about the weight of it in his hand connects him to the thought he’s been silencing for hours with conversation and traffic and musings about gentrification. 

_Why hasn’t he called?_

He stops at the corner of Second and East 10th Street and unlocks his phone.  


Three missed calls and a message from Brian Kinney blink up at him in glowing green script. Justin doesn’t listen to the message. He hits Call and steps out of the flow of bodies, away from the curb and into the relative dark of 10th Street. 

“Justin?” Brian picks up after two rings. It’s hard to hear over the horns and engines, but it’s unmistakably Brian. Justin walks farther down the block to get some distance from the avenue. 

“Hi.”

“Christ, Justin. I got your paintings this morning. What the fuck? Are you okay?” Even through the shaky cell connection Justin can hear the distress in Brian’s voice.

“I’m—”

“You’re not okay.”

“I’m fine. I’m painting. I’ve met people. I’m happy.” Justin coughs. “Sometimes.”

“Justin.”

“No, I’m not okay.”

“Where are you?”

“Lindsay said you weren’t doing well.”

“Can’t put anything past our Lindsay,” Brian deadpans. “That’s no surprise to anyone, is it?”

Justin thinks about this. Did he think Brian was going to be thriving more than a year after Justin walked out of his life? 

“No, I guess not.”

“But you were supposed to be okay. Where are you?”

“You know where I am. New York.”

“I mean, specifically.”

Justin spins around and then sinks down on the closest stoop. There’s a couple across the street leaning into each other as they make their way east, but otherwise he’s alone.

“I’m in the East Village.”

“Can you wait twenty minutes? Give me an address.”

Justin’s throat tightens and his eyes water. He swallows and feels air rushing into his water-logged lungs. “I’m sitting on a stoop on 10th Street between First and Second.”

“Don’t move.”

~o~O~o~

He’s not sure what he expected, but it was definitely a vehicle. Not Brian on foot. Not Brian’s long legs carrying him swiftly toward Justin, leather jacket tucked under his arm and eyes hidden in the shadows between the streetlamps. Justin stands and feels the universe tilt; then gravity snatches him and sends him in Brian’s direction. 

Brian stops just short of pulling Justin into his arms. He’s not significantly altered, except that he’s a man well into his 30s now and finally owning it. He’s gorgeous, the set of his jaw relaxed, matured, eyes as steady as they always were, but clear and focused. Justin can’t help the smile that grabs at the corner of his mouth as they take each other in. 

“Come here,” Brian says, and then his hands are firm around the back of Justin’s neck, leather coat pressed between them, and Justin’s mouth opens to the hard press of lips. Brian groans in the back of his throat, and Justin feels the kiss like something breaking under his breastbone and pumping heat into the cold and congealed places in him. The hot, urgent mouth on his, teeth pressed into his bottom lip, the growling need in it, brings the world to a halt around Justin, and for a suspended moment he’s climbing aboard the lifeboat, letting himself be buoyed by the strength in Brian’s grip.

And then he pulls back an inch, fractured between the combating sensations of relief and anger. He pushes against Brian. “Fuck. Brian, what the fuck?” Brian is holding onto him, his eyes amused but questioning as Justin struggles to get space between them. “I don’t need you to save me.”

“Is that what I’m here for?” He’s half-teasing, but also aware this isn’t a joke.

“Isn’t that why you came?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Brian leans back to see Justin’s expression.

It was, of course. He hasn’t even bothered to pretend otherwise. But now that Brian’s here, he’s furious at himself. “I don’t—Goddamn—”

“Hey, hey.” Brian pulls his leather coat from between them and slings it over Justin’s shoulders. The air is too warm for leather, but the familiar weight and smell of it are comforting. Brian snakes his arms around Justin’s waist and settles them together, hips pressed against hips. “I know you’re surviving, Justin. But I want you to be happy. That was the whole point of your coming here. If you’re not, then there’s no point to this.”

Justin nods and noses into Brian’s neck, letting Brian tuck him under his chin. It wasn’t like this in his memory. His mind searches for the times Brian has offered comfort when it wasn’t a matter of life or death, and they’re limited.

Justin’s mortality isn’t at stake now. His need isn’t life or death. But on too many days he feels like the ghosts in his paintings without Brian in his world. 

Brian squeezes him tight, helping him expel the shuddering breath that’s been caught since their kiss. And then he lets Justin go, slowly, holding him by the shoulders with an arm’s length between them. “What do you want to do?” 

“I don’t know,” Justin says.

“Can we go to your place? Figure it out?”

Justin looks into Brian’s eyes and sees something much calmer than he remembers leaving behind. “No weddings.”

Brian nods, his expression appropriately stern. “Never. You have my word.”

“Where’s your car?”

“I flew in and took a cab from LaGuardia. I guessed you’d be in the West Village and was looking for you in the bars on Christopher Street.”

“I was at The Cock.”

Brian barks a laugh and throws his arm over Justin’s shoulder. “That’s my boy.” He steers them back toward the avenue. “Let’s catch a cab.”

“We’re four blocks from the subway.”

“I haven’t seen you in a year and a half. I’m not taking the subway.”

Justin ducks out from under Brian’s arm and captures him in a bear hug steps from the corner, eyeing the cab at the red light over Brian’s shoulder. “It’ll be faster.”

Brian doesn’t struggle. Instead he nudges his hips forward. “But I can molest you in the cab.”

Justin slides one hand over Brian’s ass, and then lower, tugging him in by the thigh. “You can molest me on the subway.”

“Exhibitionist.”

“Snob.”

Brian’s answering gaze is affectionate, and Justin recognizes it. Brian has looked at him like that for years, has done almost from the start. Justin can’t figure out how he walked away from that look. 

Brian exerts his strength, quickly snapping Justin’s hold and planting heavy hands at Justin’s jaw. “I’m hailing a cab. Are you coming?”

~O~

In the back of the cab, with the windows cracked and the warm night air chasing the stale smell from the space, Brian is behaved. He sits with his back against the side door, forcing Justin to talk to him.

“So, what’s the story with the paintings? It can’t be smart business to be shipping them off to the backwaters of the art world.”

“It wasn’t a business decision.” Justin’s gaze flickers over the cityscape flying by. “They’re a gift. For you.”

“I figured that out. But, Justin. Honestly.”

Justin shrugs and slowly swings his eyes back to Brian’s. It’s dark, and the city lights cast moving shadows into the car. “I can’t sell them. But that isn’t the reason I gave them to you.”

Brian nods and doesn’t reply. 

Justin inhales and exhales heavily, wondering if they have to talk about this right now. “They’re nothing like the work I’ve sold, and I’m trying to get the attention of some of the more important collectors. I can’t do that if my paintings aren’t recognizable right now. I also need to be careful how much I sell.”

Brian grins widely.

“What?” Justin is annoyed. It’s a familiarly condescending expression.

“Smart business after all. I’m glad to see the idealistic artist has developed a mercenary streak.”

Justin kicks Brian’s shin. “I want to make a living. And I’ve had some advice.”

“I figured. You’ll have to tell me more about that at some point.”

Justin takes the hand that Brian’s offering him across the back of the seat and opens his palm to warm skin.

~O~

“It’s a dump,” Justin calls after Brian, who’s pacing the length of his tiny apartment in the dark, straight back to the bedroom. Ambient city light through the large window against the far wall of Justin’s bedroom traces itself around Brian’s retreating figure.

“Not as bad as the dump of a studio you left me for in Pittsburgh.” Brian surveys the small room where Justin keeps his bed and a single dresser from the doorway, then turns back to Justin, leaning his shoulder into the jamb. “Well?”

“I thought we were going to talk. Figure this out.”

Brian tosses his leather coat behind him onto the bed and stalks back to Justin, planting himself with a widened stance, arms slung over Justin’s shoulders. “Honey, I didn’t turn into a lesbian while you were gone.” His tone is lilting, in that way he has of whining and still coming off tough. He watches Justin’s face closely though, obviously gauging the reaction there. It takes all of Justin’s self-control not to laugh; he manages what is apparently convincing gravity, because Brian sighs and lets the affect drop from his voice. “Look, we can talk. But I’m probably not going to have much to offer the conversation if you don’t take your clothes off soon.”

Justin silently strips out of his T-shirt and stands back to let Brian do the same. Brian’s palm is warm and firm on the bare skin of Justin’s chest, his hands so often seeming the kindest thing about Brian. Generous and attentive in ways Brian never found other ways to be. Justin closes his eyes and lets Brian touch him, with hands and then the press of his hot skin against Justin’s. The alchemy in this union of flesh and hands and mouths leaves Justin wondering if there’s a livable space for him outside the circle of Brian’s arms.

And then he stops wondering and falls into the heat of Brian’s exploration, his own hands re-learning Brian’s well-loved skin until he’s hard and straining through denim against Brian’s thigh. The quick pull of oxygen between deep, groping kisses blurs the world outside the boundaries of skin into a smudged haze and gives him the spins.

“Bed,” Brian bites into Justin’s bottom lip, walking him back toward the bedroom door with his hands firm on Justin’s ass, pulling him with enough strength that Justin nearly lifts off the floor until they’re falling together onto the mattress.

Brian gets his fists into Justin’s jeans and peels them off, lays back inviting Justin to do the same for him. Jeans and briefs come down in one quick tug. Boots and socks knock to the floor. Justin takes Brian and strokes him slowly as he leans up for a kiss. Brian’s mouth opens to him, warm and gorgeous, lighting the kind of pleasure that makes Justin’s stomach drop out.

“That’s—”

Brian’s voice cuts off on a low moan and Justin presses his advantage, making the most of how well he knows the man in his grip. Brian’s fingers clasp hard and quick around Justin’s wrist, stilling him.

Justin smiles into Brian’s lips and loosens his fist. “Already?”

“It’s been a long time.”

Justin leans back at that, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

“With you, I mean. You know me better—”

Justin kisses him because it’s safer than letting Brian ruminate on the cost of his confession. He’s still up on his knees, straining for friction, and this isn’t how he wants it. He lowers himself on his stomach, hitching his knee up and rutting into the mattress, baring himself to Brian. This is how Brian likes it too: cloaking Justin from head to toe. Warm, possessive weight with plenty of room to move.

It’s been awhile for him, and not just since he last had Brian. But Brian’s always known how to make this good for Justin, and he’s rummaging in his coat pocket for what he needs, letting Justin sink into the heavy anticipation pulling low at his balls, the ghost of his orgasm already taunting him. Then Brian is stretching out over him, his confident, kind hands mapping Justin’s back and buttocks, one hand slipping down his crack to circle him with cool slick.

Justin’s never been patient and that hasn’t changed. He arches his back, urging Brian to breach him. Brian teases for only a few seconds, pressing in with a knowing finger. Justin has to bite his lip against a groan he’s not ready to give to Brian yet. He was wrecked from the start, he realizes, the first time: his very first time. And it was with the man whose intelligent hands and fingers are playing him now. There was never going to be a way back from this, and he’d be angrier about it if Brian wasn’t so constantly good at giving him exactly what he needs.

“I’m ready.”

Brian sinks his teeth into Justin’s shoulder and sucks, teasing the bite with his tongue. He gets a second finger in and plants both fingers firmly on the gland, massaging, until frantic pleasure is tugging at Justin’s groin and swelling into his limbs. Justin buries his head into the mattress and expels a harsh breath, twitching from the effort to hold himself at bay. He whines, unable to control the sounds now, blind with need. “God, please,” he gasps, and just when he thinks he’ll come before he’s been touched, before Brian fucks him, Brian relents.

The hollow slide of fingers is followed quickly by the pressure of Brian’s cock at his hole, nudging only for a second before Brian thrusts hard and buries himself in Justin. Justin reaches back to get a hand around Brian’s hip, to touch, to get him closer, to feel as much of his skin as possible while Brian sends his senses careering toward the wall.

Brian moves in firm, sure thrusts that hit right where his fingers left off, but harder, blunter. Brian is breathing hard in his ear, sucking soft kisses into his neck and his jaw, repeating Justin’s name in short grunting syllables. Justin’s ready to spend at the slightest touch, yet he knows Brian won’t touch him until he’s fucked him, and he’s grateful for that too, for the way Brian knows just how to play him out.

“So fucking good,” Brian grinds out, and he pulls Justin in against his chest, letting his finger play over Justin’s hard nipple. Later they’ll do this slower, make it last, but Justin can feel Brian’s urgency and knows he’s only got a few moments more to savor this. He closes his eyes and inventories every place where Brian is touching him, allows his body’s pleasure to tell him where Brian has gotten in. The pounding on his prostate is relentless and he’s leaking onto the sheets, semen that will shoot hot the second Brian strokes him.

Brian speeds up then, thrusts going erratic, and Justin pushes back each time, forcing himself into the collision. “Fuck, Justin.” Brian’s hand slides down Justin’s abdomen, fingers digging into the flesh and muscle. He grabs Justin’s thigh first, holding off as long as he can, thrusting faster and harder until every exhale is a staccato grunt and his body tenses against Justin’s back. He buries his forehead into Justin’s shoulder and wraps a tight fist around Justin’s cock just as he begins to jerk his climax into Justin.

One stroke and Justin is spilling, orgasm swamping his consciousness. He’s under it so long he forgets everything but the white hot pleasure, and then he crashes back into his body, shocking through smaller waves as he wets the sheets and his own chest.

Brian holds him through it, cupping his balls with one hand and milking his cock with the other, and then he eases his hands up around Justin’s chest, splaying a wet hand over Justin’s throat and pressing his lips into the back of Justin’s head. “That’s it, that’s it,” he says, softly now, like he’s helping Justin hoist himself out of drowning waters. And that’s what he’s done.

They’re finally still for a moment, breath evening out, and Brian sighs before he pulls out and quickly disposes of the condom. Justin rolls onto his back and Brian tugs him onto his chest, settling them, wet and sticky, in this bed that’s been empty and waiting for Brian since the day it was bought. Brian’s chest rises and falls in a laugh. “Fucking incredible.”

“Mmm.” Justin wishes sex weren’t so important to him. It would be easier to sort out whether this is a mistake or not. 

The city creeps back into the room over the quiet. The rush of blood in Justin’s ears subsides, and the rattle of the L train takes its place. Justin’s still hot, and covered in sweat and his own come, but the air is cool in his sometimes stuffy apartment. 

“Shower?”

“Not yet.” He doesn’t want to talk, but he knows it’ll only get harder the longer they wait. “You promised.”

Brian eases Justin out of his arms and props himself on an elbow so they’re facing each other with a few inches of distance between them, enough to see each other without squinting. Justin’s eyes have adjusted to the dark, and the city outside casts a mellow backlight into the room. “Okay,” Brian says.

Justin is quiet for a second, letting himself find his most persistent thought. “I don’t need you.”

Brian’s reaction is a faint flinch. Barely noticeable, but there if you watch his mouth. And Justin knows enough to watch Brian’s mouth. But then Brian fixes a rueful smile on his face and shrugs. “Not like I need you, no.”

“No, not like that.”

“But it appears you could be doing better, judging from the ‘life sucks’ series of paintings at my doorstep this morning. Why isn’t that enough of a reason for me to be here?”

“You never called. Not once. I don’t want this to be about a rescue.”

Brian’s mouth twitches again, but this time it’s annoyance. “What if it were my rescue?”

“It’s not.”

“But what if it was?”

Justin wants to touch Brian. The distance, even inches, is hard right at this moment, and the need he feels scares the shit out of him. The thing is that Brian looks well. He seems well. His eyes tell Justin something about growth that he’s never seen before. Despite what he says, what Lindsay says—what they all think—Brian seems to have gone on fine without him.

“You never called.”

“And you think I’m okay with that.” Brian isn’t really asking. He’s never needed an instruction guide to read Justin.

Justin nods, not sure what he thinks.

“I’m not, Justin. But I thought you were happy, and that was enough of a reason to let you go. Why the fuck should it matter who’s doing the rescuing when it seems like we both want the same thing? Finally. Fucking finally we want the same thing.”

“Do we? How could you possibly know that? You haven’t asked what I want and you haven’t said a word about what you want.”

Then Brian does reach out. His fingers trace Justin’s hairline around his ear, as though he’s tucking the short hairs back. He runs his finger along Justin’s neck and down around to his collarbone. “You already know what I want. I told you.” Justin shivers. His own sweat and come cooling on his body and the fear that this conversation could ruin him puts a chill in Brian’s touch.

“You were out of your mind. I thought that was well established.” 

“I went a little overboard, true. That part wasn’t me. But the part about loving you and wanting to be with you was honest.” Brian plants his palm over Justin’s heart for one brief moment and then lets it drop away. “And you’ve always wanted the same thing. I’m ready to compromise if you are.”

Justin’s eyes jump with surprise, searching Brian’s face for some note of falsity. “Compromise? Brian Kinney compromise?”

Brian gives him a small smile, the most sincere one he has. “The old dog needs at least one new trick.”

Justin lifts himself off his propped elbow and sits up, crossing his legs. He gives the idea time to settle before he speaks. “So . . . we negotiate?”

“Something like that.”

“Are you bringing your ‘win at all costs’ game?”

Brian chews at his top lip and drops his eyes for a second. It’s one of his only tells, and it helps Justin to hear his next words.

“No. A real compromise.”

Justin straightens his spine and flashes Brian a quick smile. “Shower first.”

~o~O~o~

The arraignments courtroom in lower Manhattan at eleven thirty on a Friday night is a place of such resigned despair that Justin finds, even his second time witnessing it, that it takes all of his self-control to refrain from shouting out. The magistrate judge is white. One of the prosecutors and two of the public defenders are white. Apart from Justin, everyone else in the courtroom is a person of color. And while he’d assumed a lot of the defendants would depend on a court appointed attorney, it hadn’t occurred to him before Sal explained it that there would only ever be public defenders working arraignments. Apparently if you have the money to pay for an attorney, you’re not likely to get arrested in the first place. Drugs, fights, petty theft: nothing more serious than Justin would expect from a typical night at Babylon. The difference is that the people here live in police-occupied neighborhoods and have the wrong color skin. And most of them will spend the night in The Tombs, if not many months on Riker’s Island.

Justin catches Sal’s attention and waves goodbye before slipping out of the dingy courtroom gallery. He has another twenty minutes before he has to go, but he needs fresh air and time to think. 

It’s quiet out on Centre Street, this being one of the few corners of the city shunned by the night crawlers. Justin zips his coat against the late September chill. The year’s sluggish spring had succumbed to a brutal summer heat that forced Justin to buy his first ever air conditioners. Window units: one for his apartment and one for his art studio that he’d had a hell of a time installing. The heat had clung to New York through September like a cat with its claws sunk deep into the fabric of the city, but tonight Justin can feel the hold slip. The alley next to the courthouse reeks of uncollected garbage, but the air is crisp enough that it’s possible to imagine the odor washing away in the next rain.

Justin closes his eyes and lifts his face to the hazy glow of the city at night. There aren’t any stars to see here. But there’s a night sky in Justin’s imagination, and it’s bright from the moon, dancing with stars. 

Justin sees his own energy streaked red across the sky behind his eyes. It’s the color of righteous anger for the teenage boy who was arrested for a schoolyard fight and found himself in Manhattan criminal court on this Friday night instead of at home with a stern lecture and a bag of ice over his bruised eye. Justin can remember the first time he had to raise his fists to defend himself against a locker room attack, _fag_ written across his locker. What if that fight had landed him in jail with the weight of the state bearing down on his freedom? He’s sick with the thought all of a sudden, swallowing bile around a lump in his throat. 

He calms slightly when the black town car pulls up to the curb and the door opens for him. Brian makes room for him on the backseat while George tells the driver to take them to Avenue D from the front.

“How are the halls of injustice tonight?” George asks, while Brian tucks Justin into his side, kissing him at his temple. 

“Unjust. It’s a nightmare.”

George doesn’t turn, but Justin feels his scrutinizing gaze even as George keeps his eyes on the windshield. “Indeed, I don’t doubt it. I’m still not sure what you accomplish by witnessing it.”

Brian pokes him in the side. “Now that the ‘Life Sucks Without Brian Kinney In It’ trilogy is behind us and hanging safely in a loft in Pittsburgh, Justin needs something else to be upset about.”

Justin tries to shove Brian off, but it’s a halfhearted attempt and he’s not actually bothered. Brian has it partly wrong, but explaining would only inflate his ego more. The half-life he was living before Brian showed up has filled like a lung with air. The ghosts are banished. He sees so much more now, and so he’s looking. Not only for other people’s anguish, but for all the stories being lived around him. He’s letting the city change him, after all. 

“Sal says hi.”

Justin can sense Brian rolling his eyes even if he can’t see it in the dark of the car. “How is the do-gooder?”

“Doing good.”

“More importantly, Justin,” George interrupts, “are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be. You got the keys?”

Brian reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a small keychain with several newly cut keys. “The landlord didn’t understand why we had to do this so late at night, but I explained we were dealing with an artist’s temperament and there is no arguing with nocturnal inspirations.”

Justin laughs. Brian has always had a wicked sense of humor, but there’s something new in the way he teases Justin. It’s as though he’s on Justin’s side now.

It’s a quick ride up the FDR Drive to Houston, and their driver has them at Ninth and D before Justin has time to consider whether he’s sure about this or not. The driver pops the trunk and turns off the engine, apparently planning to wait for George. Brian jumps out to retrieve a grocery bag that rattles when he hefts it. 

“Did you bother buying any food?”

Brian shakes his head and settles the heavy bag on his hip. “I’m not hungry.”

“Don’t worry, there’s an Indian place two blocks up on C that delivers,” George says, and he wraps his arm around Justin at the waist, steering him to the steel door that looks like it could lead to a prison cell. Brian tries one key before finding the one that fits and lets them into a musty vestibule. Stairs rise ahead of them and there’s no elevator. Hauling large canvases up the narrow staircase is going to be a challenge, but it’s a small inconvenience for the location. He knows they have George to thank for a deal, but George and Brian have handled the details of the lease so it still feels a bit like magic that they’ve found this place at all. 

They shuffle up the first two dimly lit flights, Brian leading the way, and Brian opens a second steel door onto the empty apartment that will soon double as Kinnetic’s New York outpost. It’s a large space by Manhattan standards, a full floor with very few walls. The galley kitchen is nothing to get excited about, but the bedroom at the back looks out onto a small garden, and the front of the apartment is large enough for both living and office space. They’re still debating whether to wall off the office. Brian says it’ll ruin the light. Justin doesn’t want Brian’s advertising business in his living room. 

Brian deposits the champagne and all but a six-pack of beer in the fridge, and they go back out to the hall to climb one more flight. They hear the front door buzz in the apartment just as they’re locking up, and George insists on answering it, shooing Brian and Justin up the last flight on their own. 

At the top of the stairs, Brian hands the last key on the chain to Justin, and Justin slides it smoothly into the lock. He’s dreading moving all of his supplies and art to the new space, but with Brian at his back he’s feeling almost ready for this. He’s only seen the space once, and a small part of him is afraid it isn’t going to live up to his memory of it. Things have happened so fast. 

He closes his eyes as he swings the door wide, and opens them onto a scene out of a fairytale written just for him. The room is lit around the perimeter with low sconces that mimic candlelight. Against the far wall is an enormous wooden structure that wasn’t in the empty space when he’d viewed it. It’s a floor-to-ceiling cubby space for his art, and it’s already been filled with his canvases. A quick study of it reveals his finished art secured in the top cubbies; empty canvases sit in the middle, and several works in progress are carefully stowed in the bottom spaces. An enormous cabinet sits next to the canvas storage, and Justin can guess from its size that it holds his paint and supplies. Two empty easels stand framed by the enormous windows at the front of the room.

The studio has a small open kitchen against the back wall, nearly as nice as the one in their apartment. And a brand new leather sofa has been placed thoughtfully between the workspace and the kitchen. A deep brown shag rug surrounds the sofa but doesn’t impinge on the wood floor of his workspace. 

Brian’s hands are on Justin’s shoulders and Justin takes a steadying breath. He’s overwhelmed in a way he’s never felt, not even the day Brian proposed to him in that outsized mansion. The combined space of the two floors is rough and not much bigger than Brian’s loft in Pittsburgh. But it’s exactly the kind of space Justin can imagine sharing with Brian, exactly the kind of space he wants to work in. 

“Wow.”

“You hungry?”

Justin turns in Brian’s arms and purses his lips. He inhales and recognizes the unmistakable smell of cumin and coriander approaching through the open door. 

George appears with a take-out bag. “Look at that. Pre-cognizant delivery. Alphabet City has it all.” 

Justin leans up for a kiss, eyes open, watching Brian watching him. There’s a promise of more in the slide of their lips; that promise is always there. 

“Thank you,” he says into the corner of Brian’s mouth. 

For the first time since the night he met Brian, he believes they’re going to make it. The compromise space they’ve drawn around themselves is going to take work on both their parts to defend. Brian didn’t—and Justin wouldn’t have let him—cede everything. But they’re on the same side now, fighting to protect the same ground, stretched between Pittsburgh and New York, and Toronto; each of them sharing space with more people than he’d like, but knowing that at the center of it all is the reason it’s worth it. 

“Dinner,” George calls as he carries the food to the kitchen counter. “I’m off now that you’re settled.”

Brian doesn’t remove his lips from Justin’s, but smiles. Justin speaks into the corner of Brian’s mouth. “Won’t you eat with us, George?”

“It’s midnight and this isn’t Barcelona. I’m going to bed.”

Brian doesn’t release Justin as they say their goodbyes and a heartfelt thank you, closing the door behind George. 

After securing the deadbolt, Brian turns and braces his shoulders against the door, pulling Justin in by the hips and tucking his hands into Justin’s back pockets. “Welcome home.”

Justin can’t conquer his own broad smile. “Is this going to feel like home to you?”

Brian nods and licks his bottom lip. “You know I’ve always wanted to live in New York. I should have done this ten years ago.”

“I’d have missed you, if you’d gone.”

Brian leans down and plants a chaste kiss on Justin’s nose, then presses further to capture Justin’s lips, a small murmur of approval in the back of his throat before he drops his head on Justin’s shoulder. “I never made it here on my own.”

Justin holds Brian’s head, dragging his fingers through Brian’s hair to settle on the back of his scalp. “I wouldn't be here without you either. We're good for each other.”

Brian looks up then, pulling his hands out of Justin’s pockets and resting his forearms on Justin’s shoulders. He smiles, that small smile. The honest one. “The best.”

Justin picks out the hum of traffic on the FDR Drive and the steady rise of voices from the street as Brian tugs him toward the food, the city’s Friday night winding up for its finest hours. He has a flash of inspiration, a thought about sound on canvas and an idea about the colors he’ll use to capture what his senses make of his new home. 

New York has changed his art. 

And Brian has changed his New York

 

_End_  


**Author's Note:**

> The title of the story is taken from the song England, by The National.


End file.
